An existing ink cartridge chip of a printer comprises enable pads, data pads, address pads and clock pads which communicate with an enable line, a data line, an address line and a clock line of the printer respectively, receive a command from the printer and give response, and relevant using and configuration information is stored in the ink cartridge chip. For preventing users from using ink cartridges running out of ink repeatedly, the method that the using information of ink cartridges cannot be directly restored is adopted by original ink cartridge manufacturers, for example, a fuse wire (one-time programmable memory) is adopted by a storage unit for recording ink quantity information. When ink in the ink cartridge is used up, the memory unit on the ink cartridge can record the state information indicating that the ink is used up, and consequentially the ink cartridge cannot be used any more.
Repair chips are developed by certain ink cartridge manufacturers, and the repair chips work with original chips of the ink cartridges to restore the ink cartridges, so that when printers obtain the ink residue information of the ink cartridges, the ink cartridges can feed back information reflecting that ink in the ink cartridges is not used up. An existing repair chip is generally provided with enable pads, data pads, address pads and clock pads, and the numbers of pads of the existing repair chip are the same as those of pads of an original chip of the ink cartridge. As is shown in FIG. 1, the pads of the repair chip are electrically connected with the corresponding pads of the original chip respectively and also electrically connected with an enable line, a data line, an address line and a clock line of a printer. The repair chip receives operating signals from the printer according to a communication protocol between the printer and the original chip of the ink cartridge and modifies returned data of the original chip when a data reading command is sent by the printer, so that the printer is informed of the information indicating that ink in the ink cartridge is not used up, and the ink cartridge can continue to be used accordingly. When the repair method is used for repairing the ink cartridge, all the pads of the original chip need to be electrically connected with the repair chip, and since the original chip and the repair chip are extremely small in size, contact areas are extremely small, and the problems of insufficient welding, welding omission, short circuits and the like can be caused easily in the welding process. On the one hand, the requirement for the welding technique in the repairing process is high, and on the other hand, all the pads of the original chip and the repair chip have to be checked one by one after welding is completed. Therefore, the more the pads needing to be connected between the original chip and the repair chip are, the larger the number of pads needing to be welded on an extremely-small circuit board is, and the higher the welding difficulty is; the more the pads needing to be connected between the original chip and the repair chip are, the higher the welding difficulty is, and the larger the number of scrapped ink cartridges caused by poor welding is; the more the pads needing to be connected between the original chip and the repair chip are, the larger the number of pads needing to be checked in the later stage is, and the larger the workload of ink cartridge regeneration is.
A repair chip, an ink cartridge and a printer are disclosed in the Chinese patent with the application number of 201520073875.4; the repair chip comprises a substrate, hollowed-out parts, memory unit pads and signal accessible pads, wherein the substrate is provided with a front side and a back side; the hollowed-out parts are arranged on the substrate and correspond to nozzle control pads of a flexible circuit board (namely an original chip of the ink cartridge) of the ink cartridge in position; the memory unit pads are arranged on the front side of the substrate and electrically connected with a memory unit of the repair chip; the signal accessible pads are arranged on the front side and the back side of the substrate, and the signal accessible signal pads, at corresponding positions, on the front side and the back side are connected for communication. By mounting the repair chip of the utility model on the flexible circuit board of the ink cartridge, the accuracy of the mounting position of the repair chip can be ensured, the risk of short circuits caused when the repair chip is electrically connected to the flexible circuit board of the ink cartridge is lowered to a certain extent, and the rate of finished regenerative ink cartridges is increased. However, under the condition that the number of pads needing to be welded is still large, scrapping of a large number of products can still be caused by short circuits.